Generation Z_The Queen of the Dead

by Peter Meredith

The fire was a great distraction and for a second time Stu could thank Eve, assuming she had set it for their benefit. The fire burned bright and surprisingly loudly along the most direct route down to the harbor. They would have to go wide around it, which meant more time among the dead and more time in immediate danger, and less time to help Jenn.

  “We gotta do something for her,” Mike whispered. “We gotta at least stop the bleeding or she’ll have nothing left.”

  Stu agreed and the two pulled her into the closest house, one that sat in ugly dilapidation, its roof sagging and soft, looking as though it might collapse if a particularly fat squirrel were to scamper across it. They snuck in through the backdoor and gently lifted Jenn onto a narrow table in the living room which afforded them the most light.

  Mike hesitantly reached out to touch the four-inch gash along the side of her head, afraid that his finger wouldn’t meet any resistance and go straight through to her brain. Her skull seemed solid which was a relief. As well, the bleeding was already much reduced though Mike attributed that to the fact she was probably getting low. “What sort of bandage should we use?”

  Stu didn’t know what kind they had and half-turned for the packs before remembering he had left the duffel bag behind, just outside the fence. “Damn! I forgot it. I’m sorry. But there are other places we can get bandages. There might be some here.” Bandages really were not in short supply—antibiotics were, however, and Jenn would likely need them. He didn’t bring this up as he went in search of something to wrap her head.

  There was plenty of light to search by. Flames from the second house had spread to a nearby tree—a shagbark hickory that had died years before. Its strange peeling bark acted as the perfect kindling and the fire mounted higher and higher.

  Even with the light, Stu couldn’t find any bandages and had to settle for cutting up a sheet into long strips. Not knowing exactly what to do, he wrapped Jenn’s head round and round.

  Sometime after the seventh loop, Jenn’s eyes opened to slits. “Head hurts,” she whispered with all the strength she could muster. The room spun in lazy, undulating circles making her stomach sour; she was too weak to vomit though she felt the need.

  “You got shot,” Mike said, “but it’ll be okay. It was just a nick, barely a scratch. Do you think you can stand? Can you feel your feet and your toes and all that?”

  She tried to concentrate but found herself drifting off into a misty semi-consciousness where she was dimly aware of Mike’s anxiety. Stu was only a shadow revolving around her. With each pass of the sheet, her head felt heavier until it was a struggle to keep it upright.

  When he finished, it looked as though she were wearing a turban and felt like her head was three-times its normal size. “What happened?” After they explained, her only response was, “Oh.”

  Afraid that Eve would set the entire hillside ablaze, Stu tried to get them moving. Mike refused, saying, “She needs to rest for a few more minutes.” After twenty minutes, Jenn could stand though her face drained of all color and her head spun so badly that walking was out of the question.

  Laying back down, Stu wrapped her up in two heavy blankets so that she resembled a butterfly peeking from its cocoon. He then found a length of rope in the garage which he secured under her arms. With Mike and Stu hauling on it they left the house, dragging Jenn along. The ground beneath her was bumpy and the rope was uncomfortable, but she still fell asleep.

  They moved at an agonizingly slow pace, creeping along, sometimes hunched over and sometimes going on their hands and knees. After four blocks they had to change their direction: Eve had lit another fire. An entire row of homes began to burn, merrily in front of them.

  Stu had them swing wide. Two blocks later another house suddenly burst into flames, again almost right in front of them. Eve wasn’t trying to help them, she was trying to trap them!

  They had to turn and work against the tide of dead, going back around to the right. Here they found more fires, dozens of them. These were smaller, however, and most had not yet been seen by the zombies. Stu pressed on faster now, going directly between two of them.

  Now the harbor was right below them and, to their surprise, most of the zombies had already been drawn up the hill.

  There were only a few buildings near the harbor that could accommodate the sailboat and one was an auto repair shop that was missing its roof. When they reached the building, Stu and Mike were wide-eyed and sweating freely, both expecting some sort of attack and because of Eve’s warped mind they figured it would be something horrible and at the same time something convoluted. Her mind was unfathomable which meant her designs had to be equally so.

  “Wait,” Mike warned as Stu was about to touch the door. “What if she’s inside?” He lowered his voice even further. “What if she set a trap?”

  “Why would I do that?” They both jumped. Eve had appeared around the side of the building and was casually leaning against it. “Why would I trap a door after saving your skin three times?”

  Mike snorted. “You weren’t saving anyone. That was you…” He really didn’t understand why she had set the fires, but as he had started the sentence he figured he should end it so he wouldn’t look stupid. “That was you getting your jollies off.”

  Stu expected some stinging comeback from her. She only shrugged. “Fires are fun, I won’t deny that.” She gazed up the hill where the flames were gradually spreading. Stu had never in his life seen a night as bright as this one. It was bright enough to see that her normally quick, insatiable eyes were drooping.

  “Are you okay?” he asked.

  “Me? Oh, no, I’m far from okay. How could I be? Jillybean has turned everyone against me. She makes me out to be some sort of devil. You guys think it. I know you do, so don’t bother trying to deny it. Why else would you think I was trying to trap you? I have my ups and downs like anyone else, but a trap? That doesn’t make any sense, not after I saved you…without being thanked, by the way.”

  That first fire had saved them, there was no denying that. And maybe the second had as well. The rest of the fires had definitely been set to hamper them at a minimum. “Thank you,” Stu said with Mike echoing him in a mumble. Eve shrugged again, this time even more listlessly. Stu stepped a little closer, a part of him still wary. He put a hand to her forehead which was cool.

  “You look sort of sick. That was what I meant when I asked if you were okay.”

  Eve gazed at him for some time; long enough for Stu to feel self-conscious about asking. Then her eyes dropped away as she said, “I’m not alright. I am sick. It’s the pills. Jillybean has been trying to poison me for years. We have to stop taking them.”

  Stu didn’t like the sound of that and neither did Mike, who said, “Maybe we should let the real doctor decide that. She’s smart. She won’t kill herself just to get rid of you. I bet she could probably fix you both. So, maybe if we could just talk to her?” He waited expectantly for Eve to let Jillybean out. They all did, including Eve or so it seemed.

  She cocked her head for a few seconds as if listening to Jillybean’s approaching footsteps in her mind. As she did, her old devil-may-care, unhinged look stole back over her. “What’s that? Jillybean, I can’t hear you. You can’t come back? Why?”

  Mike found himself hanging on her words. “What did she say? Why can’t she come back? Is it math? Do we have to do something about math?” He was very much like Jenn when it came to math. Anything beyond simple adding and subtracting made him distinctly uncomfortable. He would turn mute and take to nodding knowingly whenever it was brought up.

  “Math, yes. That’s the only way,” Eve said, her eyes alight. “Jillybean says you have to tell her the biggest number you know.”

  Mike didn’t know the biggest number he knew. It wasn’t something he had ever tried to think up before. His mouth went instantly dry and his eyes took on a frightened look. “A thousand…I think?”

  “What about a thousand and one?” she asked. “Isn’t that bigger? Y
ou’re going to have to count. Out loud, probably.”

  Before he could start, Stu growled, “Stop it, Eve. Bring Jillybean back. We need her to look over Jenn. She was shot on the side of the head.”

  Eve grinned. “Why can’t I have any fun? You have to admit, it would’ve been fun watching Mike straining to get past eleven hundred. Do you think he even knows what I mean by eleven hundred?”

  Mike didn’t. He knew what nine hundred was, but there was no such thing as ten hundred, of that he was certain, so it followed that eleven hundred was some sort of made-up number designed to make him look stupid.

  She giggled at his anger which only made him angrier. When she saw his fists ball, she said, “Oh, so scary. What? Are you going to hit a girl? Maybe we should wake Jenn up and show her what kind of guy you really are.” Just as she knew it would, his anger dissipated in a blink; she was playing him, working him up and down.

  Stu stepped between them. “You two are like children, always bickering. Look Eve, please bring back Jillybean. It’s important.” He had his tricks to bring her back, but he was afraid to use them too many times, thinking that Eve would catch on, making the next time that much harder.

  Abusing Mike was her idea of fun and now that was being taken from her, she wasn’t happy. “You don’t even know what you’re asking. You’re asking me to die. You’re asking me to cease to exist. That’s what happens when Jillybean takes over my body and my mind. And you know what’s worse, is the way you ask. Like I don’t have feelings. Go away, Eve. No one wants you, Eve. Everyone hates you, Eve. How do you think that makes me feel? Do you think it makes me happy? Do you think that makes me want to do any favors for you?”

  “No,” Stu admitted. “I guess not.”

  “You guess?” she snapped, moving closer to him. She canted her head back and gazed fiercely into his face “Your entire simple, dull life has been about guessing. You drift through your days without a clue. That’s why you live on this crappy little hill, thinking you’re making a difference when you catch a fish or shoot a deer. You don’t have a clue what’s really going on all around you. You don’t even have a clue about Jillybean, but, oh won’t it be fun when you find out the real reason why she came with you.”

  Mike and Stu exchanged a look before Stu, cleared his throat. “She came to save lives,” he asserted, though he did so without much conviction.

  Eve grinned, her teeth very white against her jaundiced face. She shook her head. “Wrongo. Damn, I’m so torn. I want to tell you so I can see the look of shock and the disappointment on your face but I want it to drag out. I want you to get so caught up in her that it just kills you when you find out what she’s really like. Then maybe you will realize that I’m the good one and she…she’s dirt.”

  Chapter 15

  Her words, for once filled with something very close to sincerity, jarred Stu, shutting his mouth just as he was about to tell Eve to shut hers. She didn’t need to be told to shut her mouth. She had spewed her poison words and now looked up at him in a grinning silence, enjoying the effect she’d had on him.

  Stu couldn’t imagine anything that would make him think that Eve had an ounce of decency in her. Everything he’d seen of her so far suggested she was a selfish, vindictive, messed-up person. Humoring her, Stu said, “Maybe you’re right, but Jenn still needs her. If you are as good as you say, you’d do everything in your power to bring Jillybean back.”

  This eroded her smile and when she spoke next, Stu could hear the lies returning. “Sure, I suppose I can try for her sake.” She closed her eyes and let out a breath as if in deep contemplation. For a good minute she stood there, as the wind began to pick up, blowing her hair around, whipping it into an even wilder and more chaotic state than it had been, something Stu didn’t think possible.

  Eventually, Eve sighed in great disappointment. “I’m sorry, but I guess she doesn’t want to come out and play. Ah, well, what can you do?”

  Mike nudged Stu and said in an undertone, “Maybe we should try some of the math.” By “we” he meant Stu.

  Eve wasn’t deaf and before Stu could start spitting out numbers, she pushed past them into the auto-repair shop, crossed through to the back, stepping cautiously over the remains of the roof and stopped in front of the Saber. The wind tugged at its rigging and caused the entire thing to creak on its trailer.

  “How long before we can get her into the water?” she asked, when Mike and Stu had laid Jenn down next to the boat.

  Mike ignored the question and demanded in a voice higher than normal, “I want to talk to Jillybean. I need to for Jenn’s sake.”

  Eve, suddenly looking tired again, glanced down at Jenn who was still sleeping wrapped in the blanket. The girl was pale, her features washed out by the blood loss and the dark. An uncaring shrug from Eve was followed by, “She looks good to me. Now, how long about the boat? We should be safe until morning. After that things are going to get dicey. You just know those old friends of yours are going to come after you.”

  “Don’t you mean they’re going to come after us?” Stu asked.

  She yawned. “Sure I guess. If I’m still here, which I doubt. You three are so enthralled with Jillybean that it sickens me: ‘She’s so smart, she’s so great.’ Barf! It gets excruciatingly annoying. So, no I won’t be hanging out with you schmucks for much longer. I’ll probably just take my boat and go explore for a bit, you know, see what Mexico is like.”

  “Your boat?” Mike cried. “How the hell do you call it your boat?”

  “Because without me it wouldn’t be sitting here at all. I got you off Bainbridge with my skiff, and I got you down to Olympia using my batteries, and I got you over the hills and down to Grays Harbor using my cart and my zombie slave. And it was my plan that allowed us to get her.” She ran her hand along the side of the boat in a surprisingly loving gesture. “And besides, you owe me for fixing up Stu and that kid and the other guy, which was why you needed the boat in the first place. I do recall someone saying they’d pay any price. Well, this is my price.”

  Mike deflated, sagging like an old birthday balloon. She had done all that, and more, while he had done little but pilot the boat with a perfect wind right at their stern, pushing them along in the exact direction they needed. Anyone could have piloted the ship. Stu had done even less. He would be the first to admit he had been merely baggage throughout the entire journey.

  They couldn’t even argue that the Saber technically belonged to Gerry the Greek as compensation for the Calypso since that had never been part of any bargain. About the only argument against Eve’s claim was that it had been Jillybean who had done everything, but weren’t the two the same person?

  He was sure that she had a rebuttal for this argument and any other he could come up with.

  “Let’s worry about the boat later,” he said. “What about Jenn? She needs you. She needs you to allow Jillybean to come back. You like Jenn, I know it.”

  Eve leaned over and looked at Jenn again, making a noise in her throat, as if she had just stepped in something squishy. “Head wound, huh? Not much you can do with them, especially without an operating room, right? And did anyone grab all of Jillybean’s medicine or instruments? No? Do you even have candles?”

  Mike remembered packing two of them, both homemade and both skinny. They wouldn’t do for any sort of surgery. When he told Eve, she said, “How ‘bout this? If she’s still alive in the morning maybe we can do something.”

  “Something?” Mike was incensed and turned to Stu. “Turn her back. Use your times and your numbers. We need Jillybean, now.”

  Stu tried his best, but Eve only yawned repeatedly in the face of the numbers, her eyes dripping tears of exhaustion. He then switched to talking about surgery, then electricity and then Bainbridge, to which she only answered, “I’m going to bed.”

  She walked out into the night. Mike started after only to have Stu grab his arm. “Don’t bother. If we can’t have Jillybean then what’s the use? She’ll be ba
ck in the morning and we’ll use the Saber as leverage. No surgery, no boat. She’ll take the deal, don’t worry.” They bundled Jenn up and carefully lifted her aboard the Saber. The two then ventured into the lower part of the town, searching for medical supplies, blankets and more candles.

  Stu had never been in the town when it was this completely empty. The wind had built up so that it howled through the desolate streets sounding like a hundred hell-hounds baying endlessly. Despite the bloodcurdling sound there was little danger. Driven by the wind, the fires were spreading all over the face of the hill. The undergrowth, though damp from the latest rain, was thick and the bramble and weeds were dry at their lowest layers.

  Smoke, nearly as dense as fog, drifted to the northeast as did the flames which were a murky orange glow stretching nearly a mile. Having never seen anything like it, the two young men stared for a long time in amazement.

  “That won’t burn down the apartments, will it?” Mike asked.

  Unlike the rest of the hill and the bay area in general, the area right around the complex was frequently scavenged for kindling and fuel for fires. The weeds would catch and maybe the spears, but the complex itself should be safe. “Naw,” Stu grunted. “Come on.”

  Although it was late, they searched where they could but found little besides bedding and pillows. They took it all back to the Saber, where Jenn slept on and on. Stu took her pulse; it felt quick and light. He didn’t know if it was good or bad, he just knew that she was still alive.

  Not even two blocks away Eve fell asleep in a neat little bungalow, but it was Jillybean who woke long after the sun was up. As was her way, she did not budge a muscle, going from deep REM sleep to perfect awareness the moment her eyes cracked open. Right away it was clear something was wrong. She knew it was late in the morning and yet the light wasn’t exactly streaming in through the window. It was a grey and sluggish light that made Jillybean wonder if she had woken at all. Sometimes when she was trapped in her mind she would wander through half-worlds where reality was warped and she was part ghost, part girl.